The one like Heaven, the other like Himself.
So shall the new Creation come at once;
Sin, the dead branch upon the tree of Life,
Shall be cut off for ever; and all souls
Concluded in God’s boundless amnesty.
Thou windest and unwindest faith at will.
What am I to believe?
Thou mayst believe
But that which thou art forced to.
Then I feel
That instinct of immortal life in me,
Which prompts me to provide for it.
Perhaps.
Man hath a knowledge of a time to come—
His most important knowledge: the weight lies
Nearest the short end; and the world depends
Upon what is to be. I would deny
The present, if the future. Oh! there is
A life to come, or all’s a dream.
And all
May be a dream. Thou seest in thine, men, deeds,
Clear, moving, full of speech and order; then
Why may not all this world be but a dream
Of God’s? Fear not! Some morning God may waken.
I would it were. This life’s a mystery.
The value of a thought cannot be told;
But it is clearly worth a thousand lives
Like many men’s. And yet men love to live
As if mere life were worth their living for.
What but perdition will it be to most?
Life’s more than breath and the quick round of blood
It is a great spirit and a busy heart.
The coward and the small in soul scarce do live.
One generous feeling—one great thought—one deed
Of good, ere night, would make life longer seem
Than if each year might number a thousand days—
Spent as is this by nations of mankind.
We live in deeds, not years; in thoughts, not breaths;
In feelings, not in figures on a dial.
We should count time by heart-throbs. He most lives
Who thinks most—feels the noblest—acts the best
Life’s but a means unto an end—that end,
Beginning, mean and end to all things—God.
The dead have all the glory of the world.
Why will we live and not be glorious?
We never can be deathless till we die.
It is the dead win battles. And the breath
Of those who through the world drive like a wedge,
Tearing earth’s empires up, nears death so close
It dims his well-worn scythe. But no? the brave
Die never. Being deathless, they but change
Their country’s arms for more—their country’s heart.
Give then the dead their due; it is they who saved us.
The rapid and the deep—the fall, the gulf
Have likenesses in feeling and in life.
And life, so varied, hath more loveliness
In one day than a creeping century
Of sameness. But youth loves and lives on change
Till the soul sighs for sameness; which at last
Becomes variety, and takes its place.
Yet some will last to die out thought by thought,
And power by power, and limb of mind by limb,
Like lambs upon a gay device of glass,
Till all of soul that’s left be dry and dark;
Till even the burden of some ninety years
Hath crashed into them like a rock; shattered
Their system as if ninety suns had rushed
To ruin earth—or Heaven had rained its stars;
Till they become, like scrolls, unreadable
Throught dust and mould. Can they be cleaned and read?
Do human spirits wax and wane like moons!
The eye dims and the heart gets old and slow;
The lithe limb stiffens, and the sun-hued locks
Thin themselves off, or whitely wither;—still
Ages not spirit, even in one point,
Immeasurably small; from orb to orb,
In ever rising radiance, shining like
The sun upon the thousand lands of earth.
Look at the medley, motley throng we meet!
Some smiling—frowing some; their cares and joys
Alike not worth a thought—some sauntering slowly
As if destruction never could o’ertake them;
Some hurrying on as fearing judgment swift
Should trip the heels of Death and seize them living.
Grief hallows hearts even while it ages
And much hot grief, in youth, forces up life
With power which too soon ripens and which drops. A funeral passes.
Whose funeral is this ye follow, friends?
Would ye have grief, let me come! I am woe.
We want no grief: Festus! she died of grief.
Did ye say she died? oh! I knew her then.
Set down the body; let toe look upon her!
Now, Son of God! what dost Thou now in heaven
While one so beautiful lies earthening here?
I will give up the future for the past;
The winged spirit and the starry home
If Thou wilt let her live, and make me love.
She was a lock of Heaven which Heaven gave earth,
And took again, because unworthy of her.
Her air was an immortal’s; I have seen
Stars look on it with feeling; and her eye,
Wherever she went, it won her way like wine.
Men bowed to it as to the lifted Host.
How could I be so cruel? Who but I?
And now, corruption, come; sit; feast thyself!
This is the choicest banquet thou hast been at.
Thou art my happier, only rival: thou
Who takest love from the living—life from beauty—
Beauty from death—whole robber of the world!
The moment after thou desertedst her
A cloud came over the prospect of her life;
And I foresaw how evening would set in,
Early and dark and deadly. She was true.
Did I not love thee too? pure! perfect thing!
This is a soul I see and not a body.
Go, beauty, Test for aye; go, starry eyes,
And lips like rosebuds peeping out of snow;
Go, breast love-filled as a boat’s sail with wind,
Leaping from wave to wave as leaps a child
Thoughtless o’er grassy graves; go, locks, which have
The golden embrownment of a lion’s eye!
Yet one more look; farewell, thou well and fair!
All who but loved thee shall be deathless. Nought
Named but with thee can perish. Thou and Death
Have made each other purer, lovelier, seem,
Like snow and moonlight. Never more for thee
Let eyes be swollen like streams with latter rains!
To die were rapture having lived with thee.
Thy soul hath passed out of a bodily Heaven
Into a spiritual. Rest for aye!—
Pure as the dead, in life; the dead are holy.
I would I were among them. Let us pass!
Living is but a habit; and I mean
To break myself of it soon.
Too soon thou canst not.
Men heed not of the day, how nigh none knows,
Which brings the consummation of the
